Wednesday, 5 May 2010

Killing a cyclist continues to be treated as a trivial offence

The massacre of cyclists is so great it’s hard keeping up with each week’s judicial scandals. Here’s a new one since yesterday. A motorist who killed a cyclist and then lied through her teeth gets the usual kid glove treatment from Britain’s judicial system. Naturally a case like this attracts not a squeak of attention from anyone:

A Bath motorist at the wheel of a car which drove into the back of a bike, killing the cyclist, has been given a community sentence at court. Driver Kylee Powell, who had passed her test just weeks earlier, had her husband and three of her four children in the car when she collided with cyclist Sarah Hayward last summer. The 27-year-old’s Ford Focus did not deviate around the cyclist on the wide single carriageway section of the A4 as she drove towards Box from Bath.

But after hearing the smash happened during a ‘momentary lapse of concentration’ as she was distracted by her husband speaking to her, a judge imposed a community order.

The front passenger side wing of the Ford Focus hit the gear mechanism on the rear wheel, sending the rider over the top of the car. Although she was rushed to the Royal United Hospital in Bath, she suffered major head injuries and she died with her husband at her side.

Miss Squire said there had been no braking before the collision and CCTV from the dealership showed neither car nor bike had deviated in the moments before the impact. She said the road was long and straight and the driver would have had the bike in her vision for more than 20 seconds before the impact.

Powell’s husband Mark told police he had been telling his wife a car he was interested in had gone from the forecourt at the Nissan garage. When the police arrived at the scene, Powell told them the cyclist had swerved out in front of her at the last minute, which the camera footage showed was not the case.